Thanks to the Saskatchewan government extending restrictions through January 29, including no change in sports being able to return to play, two provinical winter sports have been impacted and released information Thursday.
Curl Sask has named its three teams to compete at national curling championships in the Calgary bubble as they will not be able to hold provincial championships this year, due to COVID-19. Sherry Anderson will skip a Saskatoon foursome at the women’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Matt Dunstone is at the helm of the Saskatchewan quartet for the men’s Tim Horton’s Brier while Ashley Quick and Mike Armstrong will return to the Canadian Mixed Doubles event as the Saskatchewan reps. Three-quarters of Dunstone’s team that represented the province at last year’s Brier remains intact. However, a two-year window of points was used to rank the provincial women’s contenders…with the Anderson team coming out on top. The decision to use this method of determining Saskatchewan’s Scotties rep was due to the 2020 champion Robyn Silverngale team only having two players return. The two-year window of points was also used in the men’s division with the Dunstone team prevailing. The Calgary bubble of six events starts next month.
Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan Hockey Association released a statement today saying that the provincial government’s business response team told them yesterday that there would be no consideration of a return to full team activities for at least four weeks and that a return to game play is unlikely to happen before the end of March. The current state of “training” with eight players Under 18 years of age will continue. Following are news releases from, both, Curl Sask and the S-H-A…
For Immediate Release
January 14, 2021
The battle to represent Saskatchewan at the Brier and Scotties is an unmatched
annual tradition rooted in history. CURLSASK has worked tirelessly to preserve the
history, tradition and competitive elements of our Men’s and Women’s Provincial
Championship.
On January 12th, the Saskatchewan Government extended the ban on team
sports until January 29th, 2021. On January 13th, the CURLSASK “bubble”
Provincial Final proposal was rejected by the Saskatchewan Government. All
options for any form of competition to declare our representatives have been
exhausted.
CURLSASK has made the difficult decision to cancel the 2021 CURLSASK Mixed
Doubles Championships, 2021 Viterra Scotties Women’s Curling Championship
and the 2021 SaskTel Tankard Men’s Curling Championship.
The National Championships did take place for both Men’s and Ladies last
season, CURLSASK did not simply choose last year’s champions as our
representatives. Roster changes are present in both the men’s and women’s
past champions. (Team Matt Dunstone retained three members from last season
and Team Silvernagle has two returning members.) Therefore, an alternate
solution was implemented.
The objective assessment of teams is based on the performance of teams in a
two-season window. This system objectively and fairly assessed the value of
teams including those with roster changes.
• This includes season end points from last season (2019-2020) points earned
from this partial season (2020-2021) which were calculated using the
existing CTRS formula.
• The points were calculated based on the current registered lineups of
each team.
o Each team and/or individual contributed their own value based on
past performance.
Men’s Representatives:
A two-year window of points was used to rank all teams entered in the Provincial
Playdowns.
Therefore, the representatives for Saskatchewan at the 2021 Tim Hortons Brier will
be team Matt Dunstone, Braeden Moskowy, Kirk Muyres and Dustin Kidby.
Women’s Representatives:
A two-year window of points was used to rank all teams entered in the Provincial
Playdowns.
Therefore, the representatives for Saskatchewan at the 2021 Scotties
Tournament of Hearts will be team Sherry Anderson, Nancy Martin, Chaelynn Kitz
and Breanne Knapp.
Note: last year’s champion retained only two members of the team.
Mixed Doubles:
The past champion team remains fully intact and did not have the opportunity
to represent at the 2020 National Mixed Doubles Championship.
The team of Mike Armstrong and Ashley Quick will return as champion and
representative at the 2021 Home Hardware Mixed Doubles Championship.
We look forward to cheering on our representatives in Calgary.
Return to Play Update – Jan. 14, 2021
Memorandum
To: SHA Membership
From: Kelly McClintock, General Manager
Re: Return To Play Update
Jan. 14th, 2021
On Tuesday, January 12, 2021, Dr. Shahab, and Minister Merriman announced an extension of the current Public Health Order until January 29, 2021.
Yesterday, Wednesday, January 13, 2021, during a virtual call with all Provincial Sport Governing Bodies, Ken Dueck from the Provincial Government’s Business Response Team (BRT) announced that there would be no consideration of return to play (games) for at least four (4) weeks and that a return to game play is unlikely to happen before the end of March.
The current state of “training” with eight players Under 18 years of age will continue.
This certainly was not the news that the SHA, nor all other winter sports was expecting. With the current rate of positive cases per 100,000 people placing Saskatchewan near the top in Canada, the likelihood of things changing before the end of March is looking bleak.
The SHA is currently reviewing the state of the game and intend on conducting Zone Meetings for MHA, Minor/Female/Senior Leagues within the next two weeks.
Please be aware that the landscape related to COVID-19 in the province can change at any time.
